Estée Lauder’s New Product Line Projects Edgy Image

ByHoma Zaryouni ·

8 March 2016

Seventy-year-old brand Estée Lauder is working to appeal to millennials. Last year, it tapped it-girl, influencer and YouTube star Irene Kim to contribute to the brand’s Estée Edit blog shortly after appointing Kendall Jenner as brand ambassador. Now the brand is taking the partnerships to the next level: creating a makeup and skin care line for millennials inspired by Jenner and Kim. The new line will launch March 15 and be sold at Sephora. The promotional strategy includes 50 tutorials and the hashtag #beautyattitudes.

While the new line – packaged in cobalt splatter instead of the signature blue – is a departure from Estée Lauder’s past, it should not come as a surprise. The brand mentioned the word “millennial” 19 times in its annual report. L2’s latest Beauty study finds that influencers are crucial to the success of Beauty brands, especially those with millennials as a target audience. For example, influencers brought in 24% of Anastasia’s earned media value for Q2 of 2015 for a total of $11.2 million. Anastasia gives back to its influencers by mentioning and tagging various make-up artists in its posts.

Instagram plays a central role to Anastasia’s strategy, as it managed to amass 34% of all social interactions in the category. Likes and comments for all Anastasia posts were equal to the combined interactions of the next five most popular brands in the study (Tarte, Benefit Cosmetics, NYX, MAC Cosmetics, Too Faced Cosmetics).